Man acquitted in retrial 41 years after being jailed for praising North Korea's founder

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A Seoul court has reversed the prison sentence imposed on a man more than 40 years ago for watching North Korean propaganda TV content and praising the reclusive country's late founder, judicial sources said Saturday.

The man was initially convicted of violating the now-defunct Anti-Communist Security Law and served 10 months behind bars in the 1970s, when anti-North sentiment was running high in South Korea.

In a recent retrial of the case, the Seoul Central District Court found him, now 95 years old, innocent of the charges.

According to initial court records, he came upon North Korean propaganda content while watching TV at his friend's house in the summer of 1978. After watching it for 50 minutes, he was said to have told another friend about it, making a series of remarks lauding North Korea and its late founder Kim Il-sung who he saw on TV.

"I thought Kim was old, but he is actually young, looking like he's in his 40s, handsome and well-fed," he was said to have remarked.

He also remarked on high-rise buildings in North Korea, as well as favorable working conditions there, the records showed.

After being charged with praising North Korea and its founder, and asking people around him to watch North Korean TV with him, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison and suspended from his occupation for a further 10 months by a local court.

The appeals court handed down a slightly heavier punishment of 10 months in prison and a one-year suspension from his occupation, which the Supreme Court confirmed the following year.

He filed for a retrial of the case in May, 41 years after this ruling was given.

Delivering the not-guilty sentence, the Seoul Central District Court said his behavior neither posed an obvious threat to the security or the survival of the state, nor put the country's free democracy in danger.

"According to testimonies of the defendant's acquaintances, he had no history of remarking on North Korea before and only came across the Pyongyang propaganda broadcast while watching TV with his neighbors (at that time)," the court said.

Referring to his detention by police for around 10 days in 1978, the court also raised doubts over the veracity of investigation records and those of his court testimony.

The anti-communism law was abolished in 1980, and currently the National Security Act regulates crimes related to praising North Korea. (Yonhap)